Audit Typologies used by Communication Public Relations Directors and Agencies: a comparative analysis, Spain - ECM Kathy Matilla; Guillem Marca-Francés & Andréa Oliveira kathyms@blanquerna.url.edu; guillem.marca@uvic.cat; andrea.oliveira@udg.edu Universidad Ramon Llull / Universidad de Vic. Sagrada Familia/ Universidad de Gerona Facultad de Comunicación Blanquerna, Universidad Ramon Llull. Valldonzella, 23, 08001 Barcelona (España) Abstract The double applied research conducted in Spain with Dircom partners -the association of communication directors of major companies in the country- and with public relations and communications agencies/consultancies show the trend that, today, in the Spanish professional practice, the instrumental orientation (tactical) is prevalent, correlated with what happens in other European countries (ECM-European Communication Monitor). This can be deduced from the assignment and the prevalent use of audits clearly associated with the measurement of Out- put results. Keywords Audit; director of communication, evaluation, public relations, research, strategic planning Introduction During the first quarter of 2013 we carried out, in parallel, two studies with identical questionnaires, which were applied in two different although complementary groups: on the one hand, Spanish communication and public relations (PR) agencies/consultants, and on the other, their clients. Both groups, dependent on each other and, therefore, being in a dialogical relationship, constitute key players in the professional practice of the pro- cess of communication and public relations. Therefore, we found that it was interesting to formulate the same questions to both of them, with the aim of observing if there were any correlations or deviations in the responses and in order to deepen the understanding of the behaviour of both groups in their professional collaboration routines, specifically bounded to the use of strategic research. We also wanted to see if these routines were developed based on the principles of the international literature on the object of study. In our literature review we have not been able to locate any applied research that has been carried out in Spain to specifically study these particular aspects of design and strategic development carried to professional practice. Hence, we could consider our empirical work as a contribution that perhaps may be of interest to the segment of the scientific community that wishes to contribute to the setting of a state of the art on the object of study in Spain. Specifically, we wanted to know which type of audits was declared be used by both groups in the development of their strategic plans. For this purpose, we conducted a Comunicação e Sociedade, vol. 26, 2014, pp. 260 – 274 doi: 10.17231/comsoc.26(2014).2038